World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/images/wowburn.gif The first expansion for World of Warcraft. An early Beta of the Blood Elf starting area was playable at BlizzCon. *See also: Category:Burning Crusade Sources *See Blizzard's official Burning Crusade page ** Townhall *** Blood Elves *** Karazhan *** Outland ** Screenshots ** Artwork ** Wallpapers ** Movies ** FAQ *Game site articles: ** GameSpy (good article) ** IGN (good article) ** GameSpot ** GamePro ** Shane Interview (No New Troll nor Gnome Starting Areas) ** Gaming Steve Pandaren Debunk (Not All Blizzard Verifiable) ** Gaming Steve Murloc Rumor (faked screenshot?) 12/15/05 *Magazine pages: ** "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade", Computer Gaming World, December, 2005 by Jeff Green. ** Scans of above article: 1, 2, 3, 4 (fixed), 5 Text from wowcentral.com. Confirmed Release Date * Blizzard (always) says: "When it's done." and Rob Pardo: "Sometime in 2006." * Tseric says: "In all honesty, we wanted the expansion to come out earlier than it likely will." * Caydiem says: "We haven't announced an official release date of any kind -- not to the playerbase, and not to retailers. When a product is set for release and they're offering pre-orders as many PC game stores are wont to do, they need a date of some kind up there. Often times, if there is no official date, they will estimate a date." Not sure how "coming soon" this will be. * Gamespot: No Date Announced * IGN: Speculated Early 2006 * Gamespy: TBD * Blizzard Weekly: TBD * EB: 7/2/2006 * Gaming Steve: Christmas 2006 * Computer Gaming: Summer * E3 is May 10th, it's possible they'll give us a better timeframe then. (or at least more information) Level Cap * An increase in the level cap to 70, including 10 more talent points New talents and spells * Blizzard promises to add new spells--not only to levels 60 and up, but starting from the 40s. "Currently we're not planning any new classes," says Kaplan. The company is focused to, "Develop existing classes post-40." In short, expect raid strategies to change--Kaplan says there will be "new gameplay mechanics for every class." Source: Game Pro * They will be rounding out the existing classes better, by adding 4 or 5 completely new spells for the 50-60 level range for each character class. * The talent tree will be expanded (it was designed to be expanded). There will be a few more tiers in the talent trees, leading all the way up to 41 point talents. * They are looking to improve racial differentiation by carrying the concept they used in the Priest racial spells over to other classes. * Blizzard stated that Mages will be getting some form of invisibility back in the level 60 to level 70 spells. New tamable Hunter pets! * "Someone asked if there will be new tameable creatures in the Outlands, and they responded 'that's a good question... yes'." --BlizzCon Art Panel] Two New Playable Races * Horde: Magically-addicted Blood Elves. * Alliance: Not yet announced, but please feel free to immerse yourself in the rampant speculation under Rumored_Races. Two New Mounts * Not a Felhunter! Caydiem: "It is one thing to summon a creature like the Felhunter and pit it against enemies. It is quite another to sit atop one when nothing is threatening and it considers you a delectable treat. The constant concentration needed would probably be too much for the Blood Elves, particularly since the creature would be much larger and thus harder to control. Consider that the entirety of the Blood Elf lands swim in magic -- a Warlock pet Felhunter alone would be nigh impossible to control, and that's with feeding it distractions. A mount? I don't think so." No New Classes * Tom Chilton: "The primary reason not to do it is so we can focus more on developing the character classes we already have. As we go from 60 to 70 we can add abilities, extend all the talent trees and work on the concept of heroes. Even though things are going to evolve, it's still very important for us to dedicate enough time to do heroes that feels really good and captures the spirit of the heroes in Warcraft III, and we don't short-change it by focusing too much on new character classes." * "Currently we're not planning any new classes," says Kaplan. The company is focused to, "Develop existing classes post-40." In short, expect raid strategies to change--Kaplan says there will be "new gameplay mechanics for every class." Source: Game Pro No Hero Classes... yet. * They are planning for hero classes in the future, but not for this expansion. * Jeux Online: "Development continues on Hero system, and we're very excited about the Hero system. We hope to shed more light on them before they are released, but it's still a bit early to discuss them at this time." New Profession and Sockets * A new profession: Jewelcrafting to make rings, trinkets, necklaces and Socketed items. New starting zones in Quel'Thalas and beyond * Eversong Forest * Sunstrider Isle * Ghostlands Outland * The entire new continent of Outland, reachable through the Dark Portal ** Rob Pardo to GameSpot: "Outland will be about half the size of one of our existing continents." ** Hellfire Peninsula ** Bone Wastes ** Netherstorm ** Zangor Marsh ** Blade's Edge Mountains (CGW misprint Blaze Edge Mountains) Portals to Other Worlds * From Page 2 of "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade", Computer Gaming World, December, 2005 by Jeff Green: "Things will get even crazier once you open portals into other worlds—three these zones are already planned for the expansion, with seven total that Blizzard knows about." * Chris Metzen revealed in the Developer Panels that Illidan closed all the Dark Portals of Outland. Nevertheless, MagusRogue, a World of Warcraft RPG Game Designer from White-Wolf revealed the following: "The portals were shut down by Illidan, actually. However, some of the quests in the Burning Crusade Expansion have you re-opening these and going to new dimensions, fighting the legion in new worlds. Should be awesome." * "One of the things we're most excited about," says Metzen, "is the chance to create environments unlike anything you've seen in previous games. We really want to ramp it up for the players now. We're saying, 'Hey, you've graduate, you're over level 60 now, so let's get crazy with some really alien worlds and creatures." Even better, this is something that's infinitely expandable for us in updates and expansions down the line. There can always be more portal worlds." New High-Level Dungeons * Many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth, Outland, and elsewhere ** Karazhan in Deadwind Pass ** Caverns of Time in Tanaris, a natural labyrinth, with portals leading to different eras in Azeroth's past, protected by ancient Bronze Dragonflights. Opening each of these Portals will be World Events (Source: Febuary PC Gamer) *** Thrall's Escape from Durnholde Keep -- In this wing of the instance you must assist Thrall in escaping from Durnholde Keep where he has been captured by Aedelas Blackmoore. *** Opening of the Dark Portal -- In this wing you must protect Medivh as he opens the Dark Portal in the Black Morass *** The Battle of Mount Hyjal -- In this Epic Raid wing players must band together to defend the World tree. Battling out with the Demon Lord Archimonde and his Burning Legion Forces. *** The Battle of Hellfire Peninsula -- While still in planning stages this is said to be a PvP Battleground where Horde and Alliance battle it out on Draenor. ** Zul'Aman bordering Eversong Forest and Ghostlands ** Hellfire Citadel in Hellfire Peninsula ** Unnamed Lady Vashj Instance (rumored to be in Zangor Marsh) ** Auchindoun in Bone Wastes ** Tempest Keep in Netherstorm ** Black Citadel Flying Mounts * New flying mounts which are only useable in Outland at level 70. ** While they couldn't add them to the main realms, as they'd break the game, that the Outland can be built from scratch can avoid that. ** Tom Chilton: "We'll put some high-level content in very hard to reach places - effectively places that you'll need a flying mount to reach. It's a dream for explorers, and you can draw lines to the Zelda-esque level construction where a new ability opens up aspects in a previously explored area." Much More * Many new and dangerous monsters. * New world bosses. * Hundreds of new quests. * Hundreds of new items. * And much, much more... Rumored NOTE: Rumors are unsubstantiated and commonly false. *'Hero Classes:' MDK guild forums *'Rumored Races:' Forumgoers and fansites everywhere are discussing dozens of different possible Alliance races for the expasnion pack. None have been officially confirmed or denied directly from Blizzard by a blue post or a press release. **At Blizzcon, creative director, Chris Metzen had this to say regarding the new race: "When we finally reveal alliance race, it's gonna blow your mind. At first, you are gonna say 'whaa?', but then 'wow...'. It's gonna be awesome." **According to GamerGod, Caydiem said: "Do you really think we'd introduce a race of jungle cat-people that has absolutely no relation to Outland whatsoever? ;)" **An oddly Asian Model of a dragon can be found here: Dragon, it has been proposed that such a model is evidence for a new Asian area in the game. This is, however, highly unlikely as the model was used as a special pet in the Chinese release of the game, no "Asian" area has ever been announced, nor has anyone given a decent explanation as to why a pet would predict future content. Debunked? Rumors that appear to be false. *'Debunked Races:' Some of the races have been debunked by major fansites or official sources. For more information, see Rumored Races page. ** This Forum Post states that Computer Gaming confirms Draenei as the new Alliance race. However, this blue Forum Post debunks it. ** Tigons as the new Alliance race. See Caydiem comment above. ** Worgen as the new alliance race. Whoever first thought this up admitted it was fiction, however this does not officially debunk this as a possibility. ** The Kool-Aid Man was also debunked by Eyonix in this Forum Post *'Debunked Classes:' ** Spellbreaker – A blood elf unit from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. IGN debunked this: No new classes, nor do they intend to introduce any for the foreseeable future, because of the balancing headaches. Tyren: "I honestly don't know where the idea of a Spellbreaker came from, but I do want players to know that isn't going to be a feature of the expansion." *'Debunked Areas:' ** Redesigned Echo Isles - Debunked by Shane Dabiri: The new starting zones will be for the new races. ** Redesigned Gnomeregan - Debunked by Shane Dabiri: The new starting zones will be for the new races. ** Undermine - Since most of this information came from the same post where everything else was debunked, this is very unlikely. ** Northrend - Since most of this information came from the same post where everything else was debunked, this is very unlikely. It will most likely be an entire expansion itself. Category:Games Category:Coming Soon World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade